DALY: GEOLOGY OF THE NORTHEAST COAST OF LABRADOR. 225 



of atmospheric erosion and their slopes as the graded surfaces of moun- 

 tains normally subdued to relatively tame form by that agency. The 

 same stage of development awaits their more acuminate neighbors. Gla- 

 cial erosion has thus not only not reduced the higher summits to flowing 

 outlines ; by reason of the fact that glaciation has been confined to the 

 valleys, it has even greatly steepened many slopes and given a more rugged 

 aspect to the landscapes than belonged to them in preglacial times. One 

 must ascribe a good share of the wild picturesqueness of the range to its 

 profound trenching by valley-glaciers. Daring the glacial period, the 

 Torngats seem to have formed a great dam facing the central neve of Lab- 

 rador which thus lay on the Kangiva side. It was only here and there 

 that ice-tongues crept over the low transverse passes, overflowed into the 

 larger longitudinal valleys, and reached the Atlantic through the corre- 

 sponding valleys on the east. At that time, the range appeared in the 

 form of a large number of gigantic nunataks projecting from one to per- 

 haps five thousand feet above the ice. There resulted among the salient 

 features of the mountain-belt, the long east and west fiords, of which 

 Nachvak Bay is doubtless the fmest example. 



The Geology. — Crystalline schists form the principal constituents 

 of the range. Near Hebron, the Johannesberg (2200 feet) is the loftiest 

 of the high points which begin the chain on the south. At this mission 

 station, the rocks were examined and found to be common biotite gneiss 

 and amphibolites, intersected by trap dikes. The schists here trend due 

 northwest, fairly conforming in attitude with the general trend of the 

 southern Torngats. Bear Island, a half dozen miles to the eastward, 

 exhibits a splendid exposure of the dikes. Similar, though much larger, 

 ones can be traced on the cliffs all the way to Nachvak, a distance of 

 seventy miles. They are usually vertical, often as much as three hun- 

 dred feet in breadth and always in contrast with the schists into which 

 they have been intruded. They are particularly developed on the flanks 

 of Mt. Blow-me-down (ca. 3500 feet). The continued prevalence of 

 these intrusives along the coast for the seven hundred miles from the 

 Straits is, indeed, one of the most notable phenomena of its geology. 



The Ramah Sedimentary Series. — The enterprise of Prof. Delabarre 

 and Mr. Adams permits of the introduction at this place of some interest- 

 ing data regarding a very extensive stratified cover which appears to 

 bear the same relation to the crystalline complex as that of the Mugford 

 sediments. They left the schooner at Hebron and walked over the 

 mountains a distance of one hundred miles to the Hudson's Bay Post 

 in Nachvak Bay, where they boarded the vessel again. They crossed 



